“It will go with me to Lviv, it means to the coffin” – an object as a guardian of the memory about Borderlands.
This article identifies the forms of updating and constructing the memory of the Eastern Borderlands through material objects, referring to Jan Assmann’s concept of cultural memory, memory of the things and the process of exceeding places from the space. These considerations are supported by the statements of the formerly residents of the Eastern Borderlands taken from interviews conducted by me in 2010–2012 in Lower Silesia. Described objects as earth, spoons, rugs and Christmas decorations create symbolical, but based on the living memory milieux de mémoire in contrast to the objects placed in the chambers of memory and museums of Borderlands, which are institutionalizing and typing in the historical process the image of Borderlands, being a lieux de mémoire according to the concept of Pierre Nora.

Memory recalled. In search for phonic mnemotopos
This article is concerned with the presence of sounds and phonic rituals in the tradition of commemoration. Commemoration expressed by sounds is a particularly vivid and full of expression experience of memory. In phonic commemoration rituals sound experience seems to be as essential as time experience. Direct reception and perception of sound is connected with a particular, specific moment in time. There are many kinds of sound experience that are present in various forms of commemoration rituals. Musical phenomena (such as songs, bugle calls, hymns), but also sound phenomena (for example bells, sirens) as well as silence can be pointed out here. The principal part of the presented article contains a discussion of some of these phenomena within the context of contemporary Polish tradition of remembrance. In this context, those forms of commemoration that are associated with national martyrdom, wars and uprisings, merit special attention.

Talks about photography
The author reflects on the benefits that can be brought to the cultural studies of collective memory with the use of visual materials (pictures, images, photos), especially combined with individual interviews. As an example he uses the case of Augustyn Czyżowicz’s photographic archive

Cinema as a medium for shaping cultural memory
The article focuses on the phenomenon of historical memory in Spain and the proces of its recovery. The author chose cinema as a medium for passing memory and presented three movies, that refer to the period of Spanish Civil War and Franco’s regime: ¡Ay, Carmela! by Carlos Saura, La hora de los valientes by Antonio Mercero and La hora de los valientes by José Luís Cuerda. A characteristic feature of those films is nostalgia for the lost paradise embodied by the Second Republic and repugnance for Franco’s regime. They also reflect dominant conviction about Spain divided into two opposing worlds where communication is impossible. There is a clear tendency to divide the memory and history in Spain into black and white and people into just and unjust depending on their attitude towards the regime of Franco. We can observe that especially one memory in Spanish cinema is highlighted – the memory of the republicans

Networked Memory’s Places or How the Symbols of the Past Are Becoming an Area of Network Users’ Activity
The main aim of the study is to attempt an reinterpretation of the category of “lieux de mémoire” (Pierre Nora) in the context of digitalization process and the functions of the new media in the modern culture. The paper argues that symbolic and historical meaning of “lieux de mémoire” is changing today as a consequence of the strong development of the Internet. According to that fact the “places of memory” really often become a part of Internet, they are “networked”. The article focuses on the analysis of the selected examples of the “networked places of memory” (especially virtual cemeteries and virtual museums). The author discusses the differences between the classical “lieux de mémoire” and the networked ones and tries to show the main distinguishing marks of the new kind of the “places of memory”. The paper refers to the thesis of Andrzej Szpociński, Jan Assmann, Paul Connerton, Mizuko Ito and others.

RECENZJA KSIĄŻKI:

Doris Bachmann-Medick, Cultural turns. Nowe kierunki w naukach o kulturze, przeł. Krystyna Krzemieniowa, Oficyna Naukowa, Warszawa 2012, ss. 504.

RECENZJA KSIĄŻKI:

Bartosz Korzeniewski, Transformacja pamięci. Przewartościowania w pamięci przeszłości a wybrane aspekty funkcjonowania dyskursu publicznego o przeszłości w Polsce po 1989 roku, Wydawnictwo Poznańskiego Towarzystwa Przyjaciół Nauk, Poznań 2010, ss. 245.

RECENZJA KSIĄŻKI:

Nicolas Pethes, Kulturwissenschaftliche Gedächtnistheorien zur Einführung, Junius Verlag, Hamburg 2008, ss. 180.

RECENZJA KSIĄŻKI:

Andrzej Gwóźdź, Obok kanonu – tropami kina niemieckiego, Centrum Studiów Niemieckich i Europejskich im. Willy’ego Brandta, Oficyna Wydawnicza ATUT, Wrocław 2011, ss. 330.

Kulturoznawstwo polskie ukończyło właśnie czterdzieści lat. W roku 1972 powołano na Uniwersytecie Wrocławskim Międzywydziałowe Studium Kultury Współczesnej, które do pewnego stopnia kontynuowało misję utworzonego kilka lata wcześniej, bo w 1966 roku, Międzywydziałowego Studium Kulturalno-Oświatowego UWr. Inicjatorem tych przedsięwzięć, bardzo nowatorskich jak na tamte lata, był profesor Stanisław Pietraszko, który w ówczesnej Katedrze Historii Literatury Polskiej wrocławskiej uczelni konsekwentnie podejmował problematykę refleksji nad kulturą.